Great analysis and analogy.
I have a similar thought for a while: [RFC] Contract-Led Storage-Rent Roadmap
Your idea of “Asset Storage” fit right into my “Storage Manager” model, I would call it “Storage Abstraction” after this.
In Storage Abstraction, data/asset logic and permission can be designed and managed by Storage/Asset Dev. (E.g. an asset with move semantic is possible and useful for a lot of token contract).
Applications don’t have to worry about Storage Abstraction implementation, they just have to pick and use the best one for their logic.